Cant seem to identify what is causing this font issue.

Did a complete reinstall of minecraft with optifine
no shaders no resourcepacks.

This is caused by the latest version of IAV.
Remove the parts pack for now, or try to remove their vanilla font override files.

also a duplicate of #1048

And as a duplicate this ticket gets closed!

I don't have IAV installed and this exact thing is happening now

Then please open a new ticket. This one is for IAV font issues. Will need to know your exact version, what mods you are using, etc.